Miniter's Notebook

Of course, there will be a response in the Tuesday editions of the New York Sun.

From the state department press briefing on Monday:

QUESTION: There's a report out that between 2002 and 2004, the then-Ambassador to Pakistan refused to allow the distribution of wanted posters, matchbooks and other items advertising the $25 million reward for the capture of Usama
bin Laden. Can you confirm if this occurred and, if it did, what effect that had on the hunt for Mr. Bin Laden and the Rewards for Justice program?

MR. ERELI: Yeah. That report is untrue and unfair. It's untrue because the decision with regard to the materials in question was made before the Ambassador ever got to post. It was made by the -- it was made, again, previous to her arrival at post. That's number one.

It's unfair because the article somehow suggests that this Ambassador and the Embassy in Pakistan was lackadaisical and unenthusiastic about their pursuit of Usama bin Laden and their commitment to the war on terror. And that's unfair because those people are in the line of fire every day, they have suffered casualties in the war on terror, and to suggest that they lack commitment and courage and sacrifice strikes a raw nerve over here.

Now, to get to the facts of the story, the fact is that the decision
on whether to make use of a particular tool in the war on terror, such as matchbooks or printed material, is based on a number of factors, including whether it's useful, whether it's accomplishing its purpose, or what other methods are there available. The decision is made by a number of entities, including the Ambassador, but also our counter-terrorism professionals from different agencies and other parts of the State Department. The decision to suspend this particular program was made in June 2002 and it was felt that at the
time there were other programs, there were other activities, where our efforts, I think, were better devoted.

Second of all, the article also suggests that somehow counterterrorism was just one of six priorities. Counter-terrorism was the number one priority. The mission was dedicated to it, the U.S. Government was dedicated to it, and whether or not you have a matchbook program is not the measure by which one should judge the commitment to counterterrorism. The measure by which one should judge commitment to counterterrorism is the resources that you're deploying across the board, the diplomatic efforts you're making internationally, the actions you're taking with the government in the
host country. And by all those measures Ambassador Powell and her team, from the day she arrived to the day she left—and the day she left was on normal rotation cycle, not because of some pressure or decision elsewhere—all her actions, from the day she got there to the day she left, were taken with that number one goal in mind.

QUESTION: Were these tools reinstated later? Is that part accurate?

MR. ERELI: Yeah. Well, as we announced very publicly a new campaign to get the word out among previously—get the word out was initiated a few months ago. But what we did in 2005 is very different from what we were doing in 2002. We're doing it in local languages, in areas that hadn't been reached before, in ways we hadn't reached them before, and it was based on what we learned between the previous efforts and these efforts. So it was very much refined, I think very much more focused, and based on the kinds of wide-ranging consultations and discussions and thinking throughout the administration, not just one ambassador but throughout the administration, you come up with a plan that you think is going to work.